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Abstract We prove that$${{\,\textrm{poly}\,}}(t) \cdot n^{1/D}$$ $\text{poly}\left(t\right)·n^{1/D}$-depth local random quantum circuits with two qudit nearest-neighbor gates on aD-dimensional lattice withnqudits are approximatet-designs in various measures. These include the “monomial” measure, meaning that the monomials of a random circuit from this family have expectation close to the value that would result from the Haar measure. Previously, the best bound was$${{\,\textrm{poly}\,}}(t)\cdot n$$ $\text{poly}\left(t\right)·n$due to Brandão–Harrow–Horodecki (Commun Math Phys 346(2):397–434, 2016) for$$D=1$$ $D=1$. We also improve the “scrambling” and “decoupling” bounds for spatially local random circuits due to Brown and Fawzi (Scrambling speed of random quantum circuits, 2012). One consequence of our result is that assuming the polynomial hierarchy ($${{\,\mathrm{\textsf{PH}}\,}}$$ $\mathrm{PH}$) is infinite and that certain counting problems are$$\#{\textsf{P}}$$ $\#P$-hard “on average”, sampling within total variation distance from these circuits is hard for classical computers. Previously, exact sampling from the outputs of even constant-depth quantum circuits was known to be hard for classical computers under these assumptions. However the standard strategy for extending this hardness result to approximate sampling requires the quantum circuits to have a property called “anti-concentration”, meaning roughly that the output has near-maximal entropy. Unitary 2-designs have the desired anti-concentration property. Our result improves the required depth for this level of anti-concentration from linear depth to a sub-linear value, depending on the geometry of the interactions. This is relevant to a recent experiment by the Google Quantum AI group to perform such a sampling task with 53 qubits on a two-dimensional lattice (Arute in Nature 574(7779):505–510, 2019; Boixo et al. in Nate Phys 14(6):595–600, 2018) (and related experiments by USTC), and confirms their conjecture that$$O(\sqrt{n})$$ $O\left(\sqrt{n}\right)$depth suffices for anti-concentration. The proof is based on a previous construction oft-designs by Brandão et al. (2016), an analysis of how approximate designs behave under composition, and an extension of the quasi-orthogonality of permutation operators developed by Brandão et al. (2016). Different versions of the approximate design condition correspond to different norms, and part of our contribution is to introduce the norm corresponding to anti-concentration and to establish equivalence between these various norms for low-depth circuits. For random circuits with long-range gates, we use different methods to show that anti-concentration happens at circuit size$$O(n\ln ^2 n)$$ $O\left(n{ln}^{2}n\right)$corresponding to depth$$O(\ln ^3 n)$$ $O\left({ln}^{3}n\right)$. We also show a lower bound of$$\Omega (n \ln n)$$ $\Omega (nlnn)$for the size of such circuit in this case. We also prove that anti-concentration is possible in depth$$O(\ln n \ln \ln n)$$ $O(lnnlnlnn)$(size$$O(n \ln n \ln \ln n)$$ $O(nlnnlnlnn)$) using a different model. 

We construct random walks on simple Lie groups that quickly converge to the Haar measure for all moments up to order t. The spectral gap of this random walk is shown to be Ω(1/t), which coincides with the best previously known bound for a random walk on the permutation group on {0, 1}^n. This implies that the walk gives an ε-approximate unitary t-design. Our simple proof uses quadratic Casimir operators of Lie algebras. 

We propose a novel deterministic method for preparing arbitrary quantum states. When our protocol is compiled into CNOT and arbitrary single-qubit gates, it prepares an $N$-dimensional state in depth $O(\log (N\left)\right)$and $\text{spacetime allocation}$(a metric that accounts for the fact that oftentimes some ancilla qubits need not be active for the entire circuit) $O\left(N\right)$, which are both optimal. When compiled into the $\left\{\mathrm{H},\mathrm{S},\mathrm{T},\mathrm{C}\mathrm{N}\mathrm{O}\mathrm{T}\right\}$gate set, we show that it requires asymptotically fewer quantum resources than previous methods. Specifically, it prepares an arbitrary state up to error $ϵ$with optimal depth of $O(\log (N)+\log (1/ϵ\left)\right)$and spacetime allocation $O(N\log (\log \left(N\right)/ϵ\left)\right)$, improving over $O(\log (N)\log (\log \left(N\right)/ϵ\left)\right)$and $O(N\log (N/ϵ\left)\right)$, respectively. We illustrate how the reduced spacetime allocation of our protocol enables rapid preparation of many disjoint states with only constant-factor ancilla overhead – $O\left(N\right)$ancilla qubits are reused efficiently to prepare a product state of $w$ $N$-dimensional states in depth $O(w+\log (N\left)\right)$rather than $O(w\log (N\left)\right)$, achieving effectively constant depth per state. We highlight several applications where this ability would be useful, including quantum machine learning, Hamiltonian simulation, and solving linear systems of equations. We provide quantum circuit descriptions of our protocol, detailed pseudocode, and gate-level implementation examples using Braket. 

Contemporary quantum computers encode and process quantum information in binary qubits (d = 2). How- ever, many architectures include higher energy levels that are left as unused computational resources. We demonstrate a superconducting ququart (d = 4) processor and combine quantum optimal control with efficient gate decompositions to implement high-fidelity ququart gates. We distinguish between viewing the ququart as a generalized four-level qubit and an encoded pair of qubits, and characterize the resulting gates in each case. In randomized benchmarking experiments we observe gate fidelities 95% and identify coherence as the primary limiting factor. Our results validate ququarts as a viable tool for quantum information processing. 

Cloud-based quantum computers have become a re- ality with a number of companies allowing for cloud-based access to their machines with tens to more than 100 qubits. With easy access to quantum computers, quantum information processing will potentially revolutionize computation, and superconducting transmon-based quantum computers are among some of the more promising devices available. Cloud service providers today host a variety of these and other prototype quantum computers with highly diverse device properties, sizes, and performances. The variation that exists in today’s quantum computers, even among those of the same underlying hardware, motivate the study of how one device can be clearly differentiated and identified from the next. As a case study, this work focuses on the properties of 25 IBM superconducting, fixed-frequency transmon-based quantum computers that range in age from a few months to approximately 2.5 years. Through the analysis of current and historical quantum computer calibration data, this work uncovers key features within the machines, primarily frequency characteristics of transmon qubits, that can serve as a basis for a unique hardware fingerprint of each quantum computer. 

We present a quantum compilation algorithm that maps Clifford encoders, an equivalence class of quantum circuits that arise universally in quantum error correction, into a representation in the ZX calculus. In particular, we develop a canonical form in the ZX calculus and prove canonicity as well as efficient reducibility of any Clifford encoder into the canonical form. The diagrams produced by our compiler explicitly visualize information propagation and entanglement structure of the encoder, revealing properties that may be obscured in the circuit or stabilizer-tableau representation